Just Talk
by fishstic
Summary: It was shocking for Josephine when she realized that Gailana had feelings, not just feelings for her, but feelings that included fear. She saw it in Gailana's eyes when she'd interrupted the duel. For a brief moment there, Gailana was losing the duel and that terrified her. It wasn't near as terrifying, though, as the things Gailana wasn't telling anyone.
There were times Gailana was extremely glad that her room was so far removed from everyone else's. She sat up on her bed quickly, a scream dying in her throat before it could make it to her lips. She shivered slightly in the chill of the night air and stood up.

Will they ever stop? she asked herself as she double checked to make sure that the windows were all closed. Then she decided to light a small fire in her fireplace to warm the room up a little bit. She sighed and sat down on the couch in front of the fireplace. They're going to notice eventually. How many nights can I go like this? I think I slept for maybe three hours this time. They're going to notice soon.

Gailana sat on the floor in front of Josephine's fireplace. She'd been sitting there for hours actually, and Josephine was starting to get slightly worried. Mostly because Gailana hadn't said a single word or made a single joke the entire time she'd been there.

"Gailana, are you alright?" Josephine asked.

Gailana didn't look away from the fireplace. Not for a while. That really bothered Josephine. But Gailana smiled at her. "I'm fine, ma vhenan, just wanted to be around you, but I didn't want to bother you while you're working."

Josephine frowned for a second. "You've never worried about whether or not you were bothering me before."

"I always worry that I'm bothering you," Gailana said. "I worry that I'm bothering everyone…" that part was said much quieter than the other, more like a whisper than anything she'd actually wanted heard.

Josephine stood up from her desk and walked over to Gailana who also stood up. "Gailana, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Gailana said. "I… I should go."

Before Josephine could even respond, Gailana had left.

"No, I haven't noticed anything different about Gailana lately," Cassandra said. "Why? Have you?"

"I have," Josephine said. "She came into my office this morning."

"She does that a lot," Cassandra commented.

"I know, but this time she just sat in front of the fireplace and didn't talk to me for nearly five hours," Josephine said.

"Okay, that is odd," Cassandra said. "If she wanted to just sit by a fire, she could do that in her own room. Have you asked anyone else? Try asking Sera. I know you don't necessarily get along with Sera, but Gailana does. Sera might know something."

"Thank you, I will try."

"Nope, Inky hasn't said anything to me in like two days," Sera said. "If you do get a chance to make her talk, ask her if she's mad at me or something?"

"No problem," Josephine replied.

"Before you even ask, I don't know the answer," Varric said before he turned around and saw that it was Josephine. "Oh, sorry Ambassador, I thought you were someone else. What can I do for you?"

"Do you have any idea what might be bothering Gailana?"

"I didn't know anything was bothering her," Varric replied. "Perhaps though, have you tried asking her?"

"I did, she just said 'nothing's wrong' and walked out. I'm worried about her."

"Try Dorian, he might know something. He always seems to know something when someone is upset," Varric said. "If that doesn't work, I'm sure Leliana at the very least might be able to get her to talk to you."

"Last time I talked to Gailana was yesterday. And she looked fine. Something is bothering her though, but I couldn't get her to talk to me about it, so I assumed it was something she thought only another woman would understand." Dorian closed the book he was holding and placed it on the table beside him.

"If you'd been asking about this last week, I could have told you that she was rather upset when I accidentally snapped at her over offering to help me find out more about the fade and what Corypheus' real name is. I think… this might be wrong, but I don't think she's actually talked to anyone about how she feels about anything she's been through as Inquisitor. But she always manages to talk to us about how we feel. Maybe that's starting to weigh on her a bit?"

"Thank you, Dorian," Josephine said. "But if it is, I'm not sure I know how to help her with that."

"Ask Leliana, from what I understand, she knows a bit about people not wanting to talk about how they feel," Dorian said.

"Yes, she does."

"I never thought I would have to deal with another leader refusing to talk about herself," Leliana sighed. "I hope for her sake this turns out better than Ella and Meiriana refusing to talk about themselves did."

"How did that go bad exactly?" Josephine asked as she and Leliana started to make their way to Gailana's room, hoping that she would be in there.

"It's not my thing to tell," Leliana replied. "I respect Meiriana too much to share it without her permission."

"So you don't mean fighting over keeping things hidden?" Josephine asked.

"No, it's more concerning the type of things people choose to hide from the ones they love," Leliana replied. "I hid my life as a bard from Meiriana for a while. It nearly killed her."

Josephine didn't reply for a moment, then after some thought said, "You don't think Gailana could be hiding something that dangerous do you?"

"Maker, no. She didn't even know what a bard was until we taught her," Leliana replied.

"Not a bard, but something just as dangerous?"

"Josephine, if I thought for a minute that Gailana was dangerous, I wouldn't have asked you to be an advisor for her."

"Dorian thinks the problem is that she hasn't talked to anyone about how she feels about everything that's been happening to her," Josephine said.

Leliana stopped walking. "She listens to everyone talk about how they feel. Did she say anything at all that might make you think he's right?"

Josephine stopped and nodded. "She said that she always worries that she might be bothering me. That she worries she's bothering everyone, I don't think she meant for me to hear the second part."

"We have to get her to talk to us," Leliana said. "Bad things happen when people keep things like this bottled up for too long. I should know, I've done it myself. I…watched Meiriana and Ella do it. I… I can't let Gailana put herself through that. She's got enough to deal with without her emotions overwhelming her too."

Josephine nodded and took Leliana's hand for a moment. "I won't let her get hurt because she thinks she shouldn't talk to anyone."

Gailana was lying on her bed, her door locked. She didn't want anyone to see her. I'll be fine without them, she thought. She'd heard the knocking and the voices calling to her, but she didn't bother getting up. Let them think I'm not in here.

Josephine sighed and leaned against the door. "Is she even in there?"

"Process of elimination?" Leliana replied. "I could ask the scouts to look around Skyhold. Unless she left without telling anyone, there's nowhere here she could hide that my scouts wouldn't find her, except her room."

"That would take time," Josephine said.

"Yes," Leliana replied. "But it would be rude to pick the lock."

Gailana closed her eyes. It would have been easier if she just told them she wanted to be alone. Do I really want to be alone?

"We could wait here?" Leliana suggested. "If she's not already here, she'll need to come back at some point."

"I'm just really worried," Josephine said. "She wasn't acting like herself. What if she gets hurt?"

"Josephine, I'm sure she isn't going to get hurt as long as she doesn't leave Skyhold," Leliana said reassuringly.

Josephine sighed but nodded.

The waiting around for her lasted nearly an hour.

Gailana woke up from her nap screaming. She hadn't realized she'd fallen asleep, the nightmare seemed real enough. Terrible thing memory, she couldn't decide which ones were worse: the ones about future Redcliffe, the ones about Haven, or the ones about Adamant. The ones where demons showed up in her room with her having no weapon to fight them were pretty terrible too.

Leliana was quick to change her mind about picking the lock when she heard the scream. After the door was open, she and Josephine quickly went up the stairs to Gailana's room.

Gailana turned away when she heard them. She knew she was crying and she didn't want them to see that. The Inquisitor was supposed to be a beacon of hope and all that. It wouldn't look good if she was caught crying.

"Gailana, talk to us, please," Josephine pleaded walking over to her with Leliana following close behind.

"You don't have to deal with this alone," Leliana added. "Please, talk to us."

Gailana shook her head. Even if she did want to talk, she had no idea what to actually say. To make it worse, of all the people to bring into the conversation Josephine had to pick Leliana, the one person in Skyhold that Gailana was actually slightly afraid of.

"Gailana, you can trust us," Josephine said. "Please, we know that you haven't talked to anyone about how anything about being Inquisitor makes you feel."

Gailana tensed slightly. "Why does that matter?"

"Gailana, it matters because I love you," Josephine said.

Gailana started to reply and stopped. It shouldn't have been so shocking to her to hear Josephine say that, after all they were together. She blinked and brought a hand up, trying to wipe the tears away from her face. Suddenly Josephine's continued disbelief that she actually loved her made sense to Gailana. "I don't know how to argue with that."

"Then don't," Josephine said quietly, moving to sit beside Gailana on the bed. "Don't argue, just talk. Tell me what's wrong."

Gailana shook her head. "I don't know," she said quietly. "I don't know where to even think to begin."

"Maybe start with why you screamed," Leliana suggested.

"I had a… bad dream," Gailana said. "It's nothing. They happen."

"A bad dream or a nightmare?" Leliana asked. "From experience, I know they are two very different things."

Gailana sighed. "A nightmare."

"What about? Can you remember?" Leliana asked, walking around to kneel on the floor in front of Gailana. She put a gloved hand gently on Gailana's knee. "We only want to help."

"This one was about…Redcliffe. More specifically…"

"That terrible alternate future," Leliana said as a guess.

"It's bothered me a lot," Gailana said. "You…sacrificed your life for me. It's not mentioned enough by me or Dorian, but Cassandra and Varric sacrificed their lives for me too. I don't understand. I wish I could, but every time I have the nightmare it's different people. It scares me so much, knowing that I could lose any of you, really, at any moment."

Josephine pulled Gailana into a gentle hug, which Gailana returned.

"Other times the nightmares are about Haven. More recently…"

"Adamant? The Fade?"

"Both. It's even more terrifying being drawn back into the Nightmare's realm in a nightmare. The books I found in the library say that the fade mirrors things we see and remember. It twists them into new things, weird reflections. Somehow it makes the Nightmare's realm even more terrifying than it was the first time." She sighed. "I really didn't want to bother either of you with this."

"Gailana, I promise you aren't bothering either of us," Josephine said.

"We're your friends, Gailana," Leliana said. "Try to remember that."

"I try," Gailana said. "I just… don't understand why anyone would want to be my friend." She looked down for a moment. "If I wasn't… If we met under different circumstances, do you think we could have still been friends?"

"I'd like to believe so," Josephine said.

"I have told you much about the Hero of Ferelden," Leliana said. "But I never told you what she's actually like as a person. Gailana, she's a lot like you. She didn't want to bother other people with how she felt. No one ever taught her how to deal with emotions, so she kept them inside all the time. She would smile and laugh and joke and be utterly confused when people were genuinely nice to her. Thing is, some things she kept bottled up inside her, for nearly the entire length of the Ferelden Blight. I will not go into details about any of that without her by my side, but I can assure you that you and she are very alike. I believe we could still have been friends if we'd met some other way."

"She sounds really nice," Gailana said.

"She is really nice. I think you'd like her if you ever met," Leliana said. "She taught me how to call Ravens."

"I heard someone say once that it was her doing that you go by Sister Nightingale," Gailana said. "Is that true?"

Leliana laughed. "It is. One night when we were in camp she heard a bird singing. She said the only more beautiful song could hear was my singing and asked me what kind of bird it was. I didn't know what bird was singing, but I did see a Nightingale sitting on the branch of a nearby tree, and told her about that one. She started calling me Nightingale. Sister was added because at the time she didn't know what I was before I became a lay sister of the chantry."

"I know you two came to talk to me because I've not been myself completely for a while," Gailana said. "But Leliana, I must ask first, why don't you tell more stories? You seem like a different person when you're telling stories. You seem happier."

"You seem happier listening to them," Leliana commented.

Gailana smiled slightly while leaning against Josephine. "I just, the only person who tells me stories anymore is Josephine. I love hearing stories." She sighed then added, "but when everyone else talks to me it's always 'Herald this' and 'Inquisitor that' and 'let's talk about what happened in this place or that place' and it's never something fun or lighthearted it's always super serious. I try so hard to be there for everyone. Sera has told me stories, really serious ones about her life, funny ones too not just serious ones. Sometimes it seems like she's the only one other than Josephine here that remembers I'm a person too, not just… a figure.

"Whenever someone talks to me about what it's like as Herald, I try to remind them that I, too, am a person and they get offended, because it's not really about me, it's all about who I am to the people." She stopped talking for a moment. "I'm sorry. It's pretty selfish of me to say that, isn't it?"

"It's not selfish at all," Josephine said, "to want people to remember that you are a person."

"I don't think they understand that I'm not trying to take the people's faith away. If I was I'd remind them that I'm Dalish and don't even believe in the Maker. I know how important faith is to people," Gailana said.

Josephine hugged Gailana again. Gailana responded by resting her head on Josephine's shoulder.

"I just want them to remember that the 'Herald of Andraste' is a person too," she sighed. "It's really difficult, when they don't think of me as a person, I feel like I can't be a person around them."

"And that's why you don't talk about how you feel?" Leliana asked.

"I don't want to bother them. It's why I don't…show that I feel anything that might seem…wrong for someone as important as I'm supposed to be," Gailana replied. "Why I always just smile and laugh and joke until someone gets hurt or something and it's okay to be hurt or angry or scared. When they don't understand that I'm a person it's never okay to show them that I feel things."

"Maybe they would understand that you're a person if you did show them you feel things," Leliana suggested.

"Dorian knows you're a person," Josephine said. "He told me that he tried to get you to talk to him about what's bothering you and you refused."

"I seem to remember quite clearly refusing to talk to you about it too," Gailana said.

"And yet, here we are, talking about it," Josephine said.

"I'm talking, you two are mostly listening," Gailana commented.

"Well, it would be rude to interrupt," Josephine said.

"And if I said I don't want to talk anymore?" Gailana said.

"What would you rather do?" Josephine asked.

"Sleep," Gailana said.

"What about the nightmares?" Leliana asked.

"I… don't know. Is there even anything that can be done about them?" Gailana asked.

Leliana thought back to when she traveled with Meiriana and Ella. "Have you tried sleeping with Josephine?"

"What?" Gailana and Josephine both gasped, shocked that of all people, Leliana would suggest that.

"I mean have you tried sleeping… like actually sleeping, while you share the same bed," Leliana said, trying to clarify that she didn't mean what they thought she meant. "It always helped Meiriana to sleep in the arms of someone she loved. It might help you too."

"Isn't there something more important Josephine should be doing?" Gailana asked. "I know you're busy. I really don't want to take you away from your work for too long."

"Gailana, there is nothing more important to me than making sure you are safe and happy," Josephine said. "The nobles and diplomats can wait another day, I finished the more urgent things this morning."

"I'll make sure no one bothers you two. Gailana, please just sleep," Leliana said. "At least try."

Gailana nodded against Josephine's shoulder. "I would like that."

"Let me just go get something to wear that's more appropriate for sleeping," Josephine said.

"I'll be here," Gailana said. "Come back soon, ma vhenan."

"Leliana," Josephine said as they walked together down from Gailana's room. "Did Meiriana ever call you that?"

"What? Ma vhenan? Yes, quite a lot. She told me that it means 'my heart' and it's like calling someone 'darling' or ' Mon Cheri '," Leliana replied. "Actually 'Mon Coeur' would be closer."

Josephine smiled. "That's really sweet."

"Meiriana had a few other things she would call Ella and I but I'm not entirely sure what they mean," Leliana said. "Maybe I'll ask Gailana about them one day."

Gailana was sitting in her pajamas on the couch in front of her fireplace when Josephine returned and changed into her nightgown.

"You really actually don't mind this?" Gailana asked when Josephine walked over and put a hand on her shoulder.

"If I minded," Josephine said leaning down and placing a gentle kiss on Gailana's forehead, "I wouldn't have agreed to it."

Gailana stood up and stretched slightly. "You can still go back to your work if you want, you know that right?"

"Gailana, trust me, if I didn't want to do this I would not be here," Josephine said taking her hand and leading her over to the bed. "Try to relax. It's just sleeping, and I'll be right by your side the whole time."

Gailana smiled slightly. "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"

"Tell me when you wake up," Josephine replied. "Sleep now though."

Gailana nodded and the two of them crawled into bed together. She cuddled up to Josephine. It didn't take long for her to fall asleep.

Josephine stayed up a few hours longer though, watching her sleep and gently running her fingers through Gailana's hair. When Josephine fell asleep it was with the knowledge that Leliana had most likely been right, and with a smile on her face.


End file.
